18 dreads?

Hello! I have been reading a lot on this wonderful site before I decided to go on the dread journey, and it has helped me so much already!I don't have much common sense, and am a little worried that I sectioned my hair wrong. I keep reading that many people have 40-140 dreads, mine only came out to 18 (I know they aren't dreads yet though).Does this mean that I'll have super thick dreads? Or maybe it's because I have very fine hair?I have read that the size of the roots will be the size of the mature dreads...but I couldn't exactly figure that out, sorry for my ignorance.I used the twist and rip method, no products, no crochet.Does this look right?Thank you so much!!

Hi Meg, depending on your hair thickness you probably will have fat ones. It is recommended that in each section, where the hair meets the scalp, should be no larger than 1 inch. Where the hair meets the scalp is the thickness of what your mature dread will look like. Fatter ones do look fantastic, but they require more attention to take care of due to the thickness. They can take over 24 hours to dry, if really really thick, they can take up to 72 hours to dry inside of the dread. So more attention has to be given to them to make sure that mold does not start growing inside if they do not dry properly.

Some prefer the fat ones, congos as they are called, but they do take good care of them.

1 inch or smaller dreads dry so much quicker, less chances of mold because the core of them do dry out.

Unless you want supper fatties.....18 is not enough. I also have very thin fine hair. The main thing that I have learned over the years it that if you have thinner hair,,,,,you should have at least 30 dreads. The ones on the top of your head should be smallish in order to have maximum scalp coverage. I will try to explain about the section size. If you have a section of hair that is the size of a quarter at your scalp....that dread will mature to become as thick around as a quarter. Dime sized sections of hair on your scalp will mature into dreads as thick as a dime. When you TnR the baby dreads may appear thin....but they are gonna change a whole lot in a year and get a whole whole lot thicker.

Now let me correct that just a bit....when your hair is as thin and fine as ours.....it will not get quite as thick as the sections. The rule is not as accurate for us as it would be for someone with thick coarse hair. But either way...you are not gonna be happy with 18 dreads. With thin hair 18 dreads are gonna be HUGE. there is gonna be big gaps between..so you will see scalp. There will not be enough dreads to fill in those gaps. I had to separate a couple of mature dreads on the top of my head (several years ago) because of that very thing. Let me tell you..it hurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If i could go back and start all over again....that is the one thing that i would change...I would very definitely start with smaller and more dreads on the top of my head!!!!

Thank you so much for your reply! I just measured a few with a ruler, at the scalp they are 1 inch, so maybe my hair is just really thin? Thanks again for the info!

the Barrellady said:

Hi Meg, depending on your hair thickness you probably will have fat ones. It is recommended that in each section, where the hair meets the scalp, should be no larger than 1 inch. Where the hair meets the scalp is the thickness of what your mature dread will look like. Fatter ones do look fantastic, but they require more attention to take care of due to the thickness. They can take over 24 hours to dry, if really really thick, they can take up to 72 hours to dry inside of the dread. So more attention has to be given to them to make sure that mold does not start growing inside if they do not dry properly.

Some prefer the fat ones, congos as they are called, but they do take good care of them.

1 inch or smaller dreads dry so much quicker, less chances of mold because the core of them do dry out.

Wow! Thank you a ton!! Do you think that I should re-do them all, or just the ones on top of my head? The ones on top are the thinnest that I could get them, so I probably should just re-do the bottom?

taye said:

Unless you want supper fatties.....18 is not enough. I also have very thin fine hair. The main thing that I have learned over the years it that if you have thinner hair,,,,,you should have at least 30 dreads. The ones on the top of your head should be smallish in order to have maximum scalp coverage. I will try to explain about the section size. If you have a section of hair that is the size of a quarter at your scalp....that dread will mature to become as thick around as a quarter. Dime sized sections of hair on your scalp will mature into dreads as thick as a dime. When you TnR the baby dreads may appear thin....but they are gonna change a whole lot in a year and get a whole whole lot thicker.

Now let me correct that just a bit....when your hair is as thin and fine as ours.....it will not get quite as thick as the sections. The rule is not as accurate for us as it would be for someone with thick coarse hair. But either way...you are not gonna be happy with 18 dreads. With thin hair 18 dreads are gonna be HUGE. there is gonna be big gaps between..so you will see scalp. There will not be enough dreads to fill in those gaps. I had to separate a couple of mature dreads on the top of my head (several years ago) because of that very thing. Let me tell you..it hurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If i could go back and start all over again....that is the one thing that i would change...I would very definitely start with smaller and more dreads on the top of my head!!!!

To be perfectly honest....if it was me. I would redo them. Your hair looks so much like mine. I have learned the hard way ( through experience) that thin fine hair does not always follow the dread rules. I did not want thin dreads and had a vision of thick dreads on my head. If I could go back.....I would make sure than none of the dreads on the top of my head were bigger than a dime. Lower ones on the side and back are ok at 1 inch sections because the top ones cover it.....but the top will look more gappy with anything bigger than a dime. I know that you look at your baby dreads now and it is hard to believe....but those baby dreads are gonna double, triple and sometimes quadruple in thickness. They are not gonna be anywhere near the same size in a year. Once they are mature ...they are very very hard to separate. It is so much better to change it now and be happier with it later...than to look back and wish you had done it different. I promise that you will be much happier with at the very least 30 dreads.

It is the only thing about my dreads that i would change. Let me give you an example of how much they thicken up. Before dreads. when i put my hair in a pony tail... the base where the elastic is....was only as thick as a dime. Now if i put my hands in front of me...put the tips of my thumbs together and the tips of my pointer fingers together to form a circle.....that is how thick my pony tail is now. Each single dread is thicker than my undreaded hair was put all together. Does that make sense?

I can't thank you both enough!! I will re-do them today, but before I do, I want to make sure that I understand correctly: When I section them, I will alternate between putting a dime/pencil on my head, and then grabbing that much amount of hair? I will put each section in rubber bands (I will take the rubber band out of each individual section before I dread that section!!) I will make sure that I have plenty of pencil-sized sections on top, and maybe a few nickel sized sections in the back. With the generous help from both of you, I feel like I understand more, I just hope that I won't end up with too many this time! Also, it is difficult for me to understand the brick-laying pattern; basically, try to have a part directly above a dread?